Riding With the Top Down on a Perfect November Day

Fandom: BtVS/AtS
Author: Ducks, theantijoss
Rating: G
Pairing: Buffy/Angel
Summary: During IWRY, Buffy and Angel take a ride to the store
Warning(s): None
Disclaimer: Somehow, no one has managed to take them away from Whedon yet, despite his continued heinous abuse.
Prompts for schmoop_bingo: "Cuddling in Vehicle" and fantas_magoria Pangs/IWRY Flash Challenge prompt "Top Down"
Word Count: ~602
Thanks to 1337nik for the beta!

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Riding With the Top Down on a Perfect November Day
By Ducks
~


Could there be anything better than this? Anything more precious and so easily ignored or undervalued by those who had it all the time? It was a moment of flawless perfection in a day that had already been full of them, and Angel tried to use his eidetic memory to file away each fine detail of every single one. He never knew when memory might be the only thing he had left to hold onto. Or hell, maybe it simply might come in handy when he and Buffy were old and gray together in the nursing home, and he could describe this day to her in details that she had long since forgotten.

Driving in the California sunshine, top down on the Pontiac for the first time during the day, wind in their hair (and his friends always mocked his use of a good quality hair gel). Best of all -- oh, God, best of anything -- Buffy tucked up under his arm where it rested across the back of the bench seat, her golden head on his shoulder. Like they did this every day.

And she was smiling like he had never seen her smile before.

He'd spent the whole morning learning her beautiful body all over again (and so much more thoroughly than the single time he had the fortuity to do so before). Now she was pressed up against him, high, hip, torso, as if they were some strange, beautiful creature, co-joined by love as much as skin. For once, her warmth and his own were equal -- he wasn't a dead body draining the life force out of hers.

He felt... things he couldn't remember ever feeling before. Things some part of him still wasn't sure he should be feeling. His friends and family always called it "Perfect Happiness," like the curse that it had been, and he supposed that was accurate. But right now, in this moment, it was safe, and he was thinking in far less dramatic terms. Definitely less loaded ones. He felt content. Normal. Hopeful.

Free.

They pulled into the grocery store parking lot, and he turned off the engine, but still they didn't move for a long time. He put his arms around Buffy, ironically reveled in the way her hair smelled to his far less sensitive nose. The way she snuggled up against his chest and listened to his heartbeat, like she just couldn't stop doing it. He could relate -- he was tempted to buy a stethoscope so he could hear it himself. Check that it was still there. He wondered what kind of physical condition the organ was in: was it brand new, or was it beaten and weak like reconstituted jerky?

A stupid thing to waste time thinking about. What mattered was the way the ancient thing felt in the figurative sense, and he didn't need any medical instrument to know that. One moment he thought his heart might thunder out of his chest, when Buffy kissed him or squeezed his hand. Or it might just sprout wings and fly when he considered the future they could have now when not long ago he thought they would never have one at all.

"We should probably go in," Buffy murmured, only snuggling closer.

"Yeah," he said. There was chocolate and steak and dozens of kinds of ice cream, all kinds of amazing culinary delights inside that he wanted to try, that Buffy wanted to share with him. "But the food can wait."

"Mmm," she agreed, and they let the perfect convertible snuggling moment go on and on through that perfect November day.

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